A teenage boy lost a contact lens while playing basketball in his
driveway. After a fruitless search, he told his mother the lens was
nowhere to be found. Undaunted, she went outside and in a few minutes
returned with the eyepiece in her hand.

"How did you manage to find it, Mom?" the teenager asked.

"We weren't looking for the same thing," she replied. "You were
looking for a small piece of plastic. I was looking for $150."

It is so true that our passion and persistence in doing something will
be largely determined by its value in our eyes. For example, evangelism
will never be a top priority as long as you see your next-door neighbor as
simply a middle-aged guy with a pot belly. When you see him as an
valuable soul whose eternal destiny will be determined by his relationship
with God, suddenly things are different.

If you see your involvement at church as simply cleaning out a
baptistery or corralling a herd of 4-year-olds for an hour, you will quickly
lose heart. When you see your involvement as an essential element in
the building up of the kingdom of God, you will not "grow weary while
doing good" (Gal. 6:9).

"Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth." (Col. 3:2)

Looking at earthly things from a heavenly perspective will change the
value of things in our mind. And that, in turn, will change how diligently
we seek to do the things of God.